The Plaza at PPL Center

The Plaza at PPL Center is a statement of the ongoing commitment of the Allentown-based energy company PPL and our developer client, Liberty Property Trust, to the revitalization of this historic city's downtown and to environmentally sustainable design. The building was LEED®-certified Gold in March 2004 – only the seventh privately funded building in the US to receive Gold certification – and was a first place winner in the Northeast Sustainable Energy Award's large building category and a 2004 Top Ten award winner of the national American Institute of Architects' Committee on the Environment. Energy audits for the building's first year in operation confirm that it consumes 40% less energy than a typical office building of its size and type although its environmental design features added only 4% to its construction cost.

The site, at the corner of North Ninth Street and Hamilton Street, was home to the former Hess Brothers Department Store, a mainstay shopping destination for the Allentown community until its closing in 1995. Lying just east of the historic Pennsylvania Power and Light Tower (Helmle, Corbett, and Harrison, 1928; now to be known as the Tower at PPL Center), the former Hess site has been envisioned as the western anchor of the Hamilton Mall-Hamilton Street axis.

Our design for the Plaza at PPL Center realizes this potential with a 287,000 gsf multi-tenant office building with a half-acre, south-facing landscaped plaza which creates a generous forecourt for the proposed building while strengthening the historic tower’s position as the city’s prominent landmark. The plaza provides a welcome public gathering space in the heart of the downtown with a combination of flexible and permanent outdoor seating for outdoor dining, a bosque of shade trees, and a fountain focal point. The plaza paving extends beyond the plaza to create a pedestrian-friendly campus environment by unifying The Plaza at PPL Center with the existing PPL Tower and North buildings.

Within the building, the main double-height lobby and two secondary entrances converge on an 8-story, central atrium which brings natural light from the top of the building down through all eight floors while providing a centralized, common point of orientation. A unique feature of this building are the two two-story south-facing winter garden spaces, integrated into the typical office floors, one above the other, that overlook the plaza.

Project Partner: Graham Wyatt.